Cultural differences can get in the way of a wedlock.

When meeting your girlfriend's parents, prepare beforehand.

Get acquainted with each others family traditions.

Work with each other to find a way out.

Boy loves girl. Girl loves boy. They get married and live happily ever after. A love marriage, which is the wedding of two individuals based upon mutual commitment, is not an easy thing in India. You don't just marry the boy/girl in India, you marry their entire family. Cultural differences can get in the way of a wedlock. In such a scenario, the match is more of an agreement of the both set of parents.

2 States, a recently released Abhishek Verman film which is based on Chetan Bhagat’s ‘2 states’ novel, gives an account of such a situation. It is a love story of Ananya Swaminathan (Alia Bhatt), a south Indian girl and Krish Malhotra (Arjun Kapoor), a north Indian boy. They try to make their parents know that they love each other and since the two families had different perspectives based on culture and geography, the couple had to win the hearts of their partner's parents.

If you are caught in a similar situation, here’s what you can do.

Make Her Parents Love You

Meeting your girlfriend's parents can be nerve-wracking. To give it your best shot, you must do the following.

Dress for the occasion; shave and dress appropriately. A formal trouser, an ironed white shirt, a smart blazer and polished black shoes is what you need for the day.

When you meet her father, seize the moment with the right hand shake, eye contact and a warm greeting.

(Image:indiatoday)

Do your research beforehand. Ask your girlfriend for her parent’s likes and dislikes. With knowledge in the bank, you’ll be better able to communicate and they might actually begin to like you.

Stay out of judgements and saying things like ‘it is best for your daughter’.

Compliment them for their house and food. Don’t overdo it.

Make His Parents Love You

When meeting your boyfriend's parents, you must prepare ahead of time. Keep in mind the following.

Find out more about them in advance. Get acquainted with the family's culture. Take help of your boyfriend on how to go about it, knowing his parent’s likes and dislikes.

(Image:ndtv.com)

Let them take control of the dialogue. Avoid being overfriendly or too restrained. Sit back and share things when it is needed.

You know everything about your boyfriend, from his choices to hobbies. Don’t behave like you know him better than his parents. Relax, and take it as it comes.

For the Union of Culturally Diverse Families

The complication here is that the person you’ve chosen for yourself is not your parent’s choice and they want you to marry the person of their choice. It becomes quite a difficult task because of the differences over caste, culture and sometimes, religion. And this keeps you oscillating between his love your and parents.

Culturally dissimilar families are difficult to convince and parents are still conservative when it comes to matters of the heart and marriage. It becomes necessary to spend time getting to know his/her family. You should always be aware of culture differences, so look for a common ground. Identify similar values, preferences and interests with your partner’s family. Show willingness to understand your partner’s culture, and demonstrate love and respect for each other’s family.

While cultural differences can put forth certain challenges, these challenges are certainly manageable if you are able to put across a message to their parents that you are the right person to marry their child.

How your Family is Good for your Health? Learn about happy families play together and this makes them healthy, caring dad makes you do better at school, eating together, being together will heal you quicker etc.

Though all possible measures have been taken to ensure accuracy, reliability, timeliness and authenticity of the information; Onlymyhealth assumes no liability for the same. Using any information of this website is at the viewers’ risk.
Please be informed that we are not responsible for advice/tips given by any third party in form of comments on article pages . If you have or suspect having any medical condition, kindly contact your professional health care provider.